Originally Posted by
212man
I saw it a couple of times in the Redhill hangar - the paint was about half an inch thick! I seem to recall it was not a standard A++ conversion and was unique. Something about MGB dash numbers?
It was / is an A++ "modified" - It was one of the very last A airframes produced by Sikorsky as they moved on to the B then C. It went unfinished for several years before Sikorsky decided to finish it with bits from the C and flogged it to Honda in Japan I think. It did not fly very much there and was stored for several years before being imported into Guernsey and put on the G-reg for the Brecqhou job. Bristow did the import mods and rebuild and looked after it (very well) for many years until they closed the Redhill hangar.
Simply put it had the engines and gearbox from a C in an A airframe and was torque limited to prevent bending the airframe. Unique torque gauges with power limited at 86.6 % (IIRC) rathe than 100% and the flight manual had the graphs from a C cut off at 10,800lbs rather than 11,700 lbs.
Used to be jokingly called the "C minus"
A great machine for that particular mission.